Hilaria Baldwin arrives at court in New York on Nov. 12 for the trial of a woman accused of stalking husband Alec Baldwin. / Seth Wenig, AP

by Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

by Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

It has been a fairly brutal few days for perennial headline-maker Alec Baldwin.

MSNBC yanked his talk show for two weeks as a result of the brouhaha stemming from his use of a homophobic slur.

And the married father of two, no stranger to public image beatings, took to HuffPo to ask for understanding. His show, he writes, might not come back at all.

As for that homophobic slur: "One is that I never used the word faggot in the tape recording being offered as evidence against me. What word is said right after the other choice word I use is unclear. But I can assure you, with complete confidence, that a direct homophobic slur (or indirect one for that matter) is not spoken."

And then, Baldwin pleads to have his wife, infant daughter Carmen and adult daughter Ireland left alone. "My wife is a young mother with a newborn child. Yet reporters harass and hector her and our baby outside our home in ways that approximate a hockey brawl. It is shameful. And it should be illegal."

Agreed, the paps can get very aggressive, sometimes scarily so. The thing is, Baldwin is happy to work the press when it suits him, to promote his movies or collect awards. And his wife, a correspondent on Extra, is actually a member of the media herself. They posed with newborn photos of their daughter, and had no qualms about sharing fairly personal parts of their lives with the press. And so the other thing is, you can't have it both ways, as Baldwin surely knows by now.